Independent reporting and commentary from TJ Sullivan, a national award-winning writer, formerly of Los Angeles, now living in Chicago. Sullivan is an author, independent journalist, photographer and college-level journalism instructor who has been featured as a speaker at several national writing conferences. To request an interview, or to inquire about scheduling Sullivan to speak at your event, please include the name and address of your organization and a contact telephone number.
Sims, who attended one of my journalism courses a couple years ago as an undergrad at CSUN, brings an interesting perspective to the issue, having grown up on the backlots and production sets of Hollywood, as well as having worked as a theater critic in LA for an online publication before heading east to further his education at Columbia.
The three stalwarts of Los Angeles theatre, Sheldon Epps of the Pasadena Playhouse, Gilbert Cates of the Geffen Playhouse and Michael Ritchie of Center Theatre Group, recently took to the airwaves and discussed the loss of critics at local papers. While many fine points were made, it was Cates' suggestion of resorting to peer-review amongst his lot that was troubling. Lending a critical voice to those that stand to financially profit from a commercial success begins to look like a slippery slope. Would Jack Warner writing reviews of MGM's films have served the public? I can picture it now. "'The Wizard of Oz' is a competent piece of celluloid, but you would be better served saving your money in these hard times, as we have a real hit coming your way next week."
A critic must stand alone, unaffected by any controlling interests or pressures to valiantly inform their reader. "It is only by remaining collected, and refusing to lend himself to the point of view of the practical man, that the critic can do the practical man any service," wrote Matthew Arnold.
The Web blackout petition is scheduled to be discussed Wednesday afternoon on Crosstalk with host Jim Rondeau at KCLU 88.3 FM. The show airs from 1-2 p.m. and the segment about the petition is likely to occur during the last quarter hour.
Several publications have requested interviews. One published its story Wednesday at Journalism.co.uk, an edited Q&A conducted via e-mail by London-based reporter Laura Oliver.
Many other blog posts about the petition have also been published, though the variations are extreme. Online publications that appeal to the American journalism industry have represented the effort accurately. But some sites that write for a more general audience have misrepresented the petition's purpose as an effort to save newsprint, which is not the case. The goal of the petition is to raise awareness about the crisis facing the news-gathering organizations we call "newspapers." It's got nothing to do with saving the medium of paper. Clearly the future of newspapers is the Internet.
Such misunderstandings only serve to underscore the need to make online readers aware that newspapers account for the bulk of online news content, which is the goal of conducting a week-long blackout of all non-pay-access Web sites run by newspapers and The Associated Press.
Because most people access newspaper content online, where it's often stripped of its brand and repackaged by countless unassociated providers, the public perceives the news it consumes as being free, when, in fact, more often than not, a newspaper reporter either wrote the stories, or reported the original versions that some other entity rewrote. The news, like the water that comes out the taps in people's homes, does not inspire those who consume it to determine from where it comes, unless it is tainted, or fails to flow. I'd prefer not to wait until more newspapers fail and the news stops flowing.
More about the petition is at this link, including a list of links to the many other posts that have been published in response.
Isaacson makes a similar case to the one made in the petition to persuade newspapers (and the AP) to pull the plug on their non-pay-access Web sites for one week this summer. It's not about saving "newsprint." It's about saving newspapers as news-gathering organizations.
Jon Stewart's intro:
I couldn't think of a more worthy cause. I love the newspaper. There's nothing better ... but how do we do it?
A potential solution:
Jon Stewart: What about giving it more of a cable TV or a radio model ... because the aggregators are the ones. The Huffington Post ... the Drudge Report ... Those ones that link to the reporters, that don't do reporting of their own, but link.
Walter Isaacson: Right. The aggregators are getting the bulk of the ad dollars right now.
Jon Stewart: Right. Why not do licensing deals, like they're 'a radio station' and you're 'the artist.' Do it like 'hits' are 'spins,' and make those deals. Like it's a cable model. Or it's a radio model.
And that may explain why Web entrepreneurs like Ken Layne at Wonkette appear to be so upset that we're talking about this.
Odd as that may sound today considering all the good he did his country, Jefferson worried about the possibility, so much so that, while on a trip to Europe in 1787, one of his letters home became a kind of dissertation about the people he'd seen transformed into "wolves and sheep" along the way.
Cloaked in the garb of government, Jefferson wrote, the leaders of Europe had managed to divide their nations into two distinct classes -- "wolves and sheep" -- with the ruling class preying upon everyone else.
It was, Jefferson figured, the result of the public's inattention, an inevitability wherever government was permitted to exist absent a free press.
"Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."
Those words appeared in Jefferson's letter to Edward Carrington, a Virginia statesman who was serving as a delegate to the Continental Congress. In it, Jefferson went on to say that, without newspapers, he feared the American public would stop paying attention to their government. Once that happened it was only a matter of time before Jefferson, the Congress, and the whole of the American government turned into a pack of wolves preying upon sheep.
Wolves and sheep. You don't have to be a Jeffersonian scholar to comprehend what it means.
Yet, here we find ourselves more than 222 years later in the midst of a newspaper crisis that TIME magazine says has reached "meltdown proportions," meaning our transformation into wolves and sheep may soon be a foregone conclusion, and still the majority of the American public appears oblivious.
Many newspapers have closed. Buyouts and layoffs have decimated once great institutions of American journalism. And despite all that, some of the craziest last-ditch efforts you ever could have imagined are being implemented in the effort to stave off death.
These aren't sane measures. Indeed, had anyone suggested such things two years ago they'd have been branded a lunatic. But as we approach panic mode, even remotely plausible ideas seem worth a shot.
TIME magazine's cover story this week, a very thought-provoking piece written by Walter Isaacson (a former TIME managing editor, and president and CEO of the Aspen Institute), suggests the solution may be to charge readers for access:
"Under a micropayment system, a newspaper might decide to charge a nickel for an article or a dime for that day's full edition or $2 for a month's worth of Web access. Some surfers would balk, but I suspect most would merrily click through if it were cheap and easy enough."
Simple enough, except that, as Isaacson points out, it's not new. Writers have been charging readers for news since paper put cave walls out of business, but, despite that, prior attempts to make readers pay in the wired world of the World Wide Web haven't gone over very well.
Which brings us right back to where we've been for years while, in the meantime, another newspaper (Denver's Rocky Mountain News) rages against the dying of the light.
No more.
It's time to do something drastic.
It's time to do more than join another Facebook pledge group, or promote a campaign like National Buy A Newspaper Day, or to purchase some overpriced t-shirts emblazoned with the message "Save a journalist, buy a newspaper."
It's time to admit that, regardless of how many readers may be clicking through newspaper content for free on the Internet, newspapers don't matter to those readers because Jefferson's concerns aren't on their radar. They've got enough to worry about. They've got jobs of their own. They've got this much time to read blog X, Y and Z, and click their way over to the paper and back, or not, or whatever, but there's no compelling reason for them to stop and think about what would happen if the newspapers providing all that news ceased to exist.
To the average reader wolves and sheep are little more than characters in a fairy tale.
It's not that Americans don't care. It's simply a matter of human nature. Until the discomfort reaches the readers -- at which point it will be too late -- there's no motivation for them to get involved in finding a solution.
Clearly newspapers can't solve this alone. They've had years. They're lost. And, at this stage, asking for directions isn't enough to put them back on track.
Now is the time for newspapers to do something proactive; time for them to demonstrate what life would be like without them.
It's time for every daily newspaper in the United States, in cooperation with the Associated Press, to shut down their free Web sites for one week.
Yes. Shut it down. Blank screen. Nothing.
Of course, news would still be reported daily in every newspaper's printed product. No editor, or reporter or publication would dare shirk their watchdog responsibilities. This isn't about stopping the presses.
But the Web? People can do without news on the Web for a week. They won't like it. They'll complain about it. But, that's exactly what has to happen before they can be expected to care.
Pulling the plug gets their attention.
So, here's the proposal: At the stroke of midnight on Independence Day, Saturday July 4, all daily newspapers ought to switch off their Web sites until Friday, July 10.
Call it "A Week Without a Virtual Newspaper." Call it crazy. Call it costly. Call it whatever you want, but it's no more drastic a measure than asking people to work for free. [The petition is available online at this link.]
A move like this puts the crisis where it ought to be, front and center at the top of every newscast. It makes it impossible for anyone to deny where the majority of news content comes from, and why it matters. For without virtual newspapers, what would Drudge report? What would Huffington post? What would Google News and Yahoo News and all those cut-and-paste blogs that get so much of their material from newspapers have to offer if newspapers went away?
Not that there's anything wrong with public affairs blogs, aggregate news sites, or any other online entity that makes use of newspaper reports. The point of pulling the plug for one week isn't to harm them, but to emphasize the origin of all that news content, and why everyone should care about protecting that source.
Pulling the plug is perhaps the only way to make people outside of journalism sit up and take notice that this isn't about jobs in journalism, but American Democracy.
Clay Owen was an accomplished photojournalist who worked at the Knoxville News-Sentinel for the past 17 years, a truly rare commitment for someone so talented in an industry that rewards those who leave far more often than it does those who stay put.
To those lucky enough to have known him at any point in his life, Clay Owen was an upbeat, generous, and truly kind human being. A southern gentleman of the highest caliber.
Clay died at home unexpectedly Tuesday of an apparent heart attack. He was 47.
I had the pleasure of working with Clay and his wife Jackie while we were all student journalists at UK in the 1980s.
He will be greatly missed.
As far as Clay's history in Los Angeles goes ... He won a coveted summer internship at the Los Angeles Times in 1987, along with fellow photojournalist Alan Lessig, and sportswriter Todd Jones, all of whom were University of Kentucky students at the time.
A blog has been set up by a friend of Clay's in the hope that friends will post memories of him there. It's at FriendsOfClayOwen.blogspot.com.
In more than 17 years at the News Sentinel, Mr. Owen's work was honored in numerous professional competitions. Last fall, his photograph of an Army National Guard helicopter pilot greeting a young pen pal won a regional award from the National Press Photographers Association.
His talents provided readers with images ranging from feature stories (such as last week's Knox County Spelling Bee) to project work (last year's look at hunger in East Tennessee and an upcoming examination of efforts to relieve homelessness) to artistically executed images for our Food & Home pages.
Mr. Owen also was the regular partner of now-retired senior writer Fred Brown in the Appalachian Journal series, in which they roamed East Tennessee to bring readers a peek into life off the beaten path.
"It was Clay Owen's kind smile and gentle way that was the key to our success," Brown wrote in a tribute for knoxnews.com.
Projects editor John North was perhaps the last colleague to consult with Mr. Owen, reviewing his photographs for the homelessness series Tuesday evening.
Clay also had a Facebook page, though you must be a member to view it. Not sure if it can be viewed by those outside his network, or outside his approved friends list.
